Rating : 3.5/5
Genre : Reality
Year : 2021
Platform : Netflix
Episodes : 7
Kidwise : PG-13
What The Love is a reality show hosted by Karan Johar where he helps 6 young people find true love, or at least get started on the journey. The series is entertaining to watch, just like most of Johar’s films. It is fun and light-hearted (mostly), delivers drama, and has the sheen of expensive show-making.
The first episode is the “getting started” one, in which Johar brings together a group of young people (not sure how they were chosen, but there must have been about 50 of them), for a party where he meets and mingles with them in an effort to narrow down his picks to 6 individuals.
The rest of the episodes each focus on a single individual, and Karan attempts to suss out their failed love-ki-kahaani so he can make it better. He does this in a variety of ways – getting them a mental makeover with an “expert”, getting them a physical make-over with look-and-makeup consultants (and they really knew what they were doing), and sending them on prep dates, with famous celebrities, like Arjun Kapoor, Huma Qureshi and Ali Fazal, who give him (Karan) feedback on the individual.
It helps that we are all suckers for luv-shuv and happy endings.
Then he sets up 2 dates for this individual, and after the dates have finished the individual has to pick 1 of the dates, and assuming that the person he/she went on a date with reciprocates the interest, they proceed further on their own, sans Karan.
The series worked firstly because Johar is a showman, and he knows how to present the stories interestingly. Also, it helps that we are all suckers for luv-shuv and happy endings. There’s also depth to these tales because some of them deal with real trauma, body and esteem issues, and repressive social mores, and Johar seems truly sympathetic; I feel a twinge of sadness as he muses over the fact that he himself hasn’t found ”the one” yet.
It was interesting to see that one of the episodes featured Rabane, a gay eager-beaver, whom Johar ( a gay man himself) schools. My favorite episode was the 2nd, which featured lively pathologist Aashi, and her experiences with the arranged marriage process, and discussing weighty issues with judgemental Indian men and their mothers.
This was an enjoyable, well-made show, and is well worth the watch.
Kidwise: Mostly safe for the young-ones except for Episode 3 which had some explicit innuendoes.
